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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440693">so why ya gotta stand there looking like the answer now</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome'>Chrome</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cinderbrush (Web Series), Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Flirting, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Other, Post-Canon, critmas treat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:14:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,738</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440693</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The gunshot wound didn't kill Jamie Wrenly, but embarrassment might.</p><p>(Or, Aff and Jamie talk some things out.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aff Flowers/Jamie Wrenly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Critmas Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>so why ya gotta stand there looking like the answer now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardreamertwo/gifts">stardreamertwo</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jamie had never been in the hospital for a gunshot wound before and so didn’t have <em> expectations </em>, exactly, but if they had, Aff Flowers showing up in their hospital room about forty seconds after their mother stepped out would not have been it.</p><p>“Hey,” Aff said, hovering. They were less covered in blood than the last time Jamie had seen them and also didn’t look like a giant wolf anymore, so that was an improvement. Their hair was still a ragged mess around their face, and they were now wearing a sweatshirt several sizes too large.</p><p>“Hey,” Jamie said. They lifted a hand in what was meant to be a casual wave but actually just showed off the IV inserted into the back of their hand. “Nice sweatshirt.”</p><p>“Thanks, it’s my dad’s,” Aff said, with total sincerity.</p><p>“So...what do you want?”</p><p>“They said you were out of surgery,” Aff said.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jamie said. “But why are you here?”</p><p>“I wanted to make sure you weren’t like, dying or anything,” Aff said. “You’re not dying, right? I mean, no offense, dude, you look kind of—I mean, hot, but like, Victorian dying of consumption hot?”</p><p>Jamie stared for a second. “No, I am dying.”</p><p>“What!” Aff yelped. “Wait, what, I—”</p><p>“They’re letting visitors in here because I’m just gonna—” they made a gesture across their throat. “Any minute now.”</p><p>“Oh, you were kidding. Okay. You freaked me out.” Aff exhaled and then sat down on the hard plastic chair. They stood up again almost immediately and hovered next to the bed.</p><p>“I’m fine,” Jamie said, a little uncomfortably.</p><p>“And are your hands okay?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Can I see?”</p><p>Jamie obligingly held their hands out. Aside from some new scars—about the same color as the surrounding skin in the middle, but with a pink edge, like someone had outlined the burn spots on their palms—they were fine.</p><p>“Is that,” Aff poked the scar.</p><p>“Yeah.” Aff’s hands were very warm against Jamie’s. They were starting to be a little grateful for the blood loss, because they weren’t sure they’d been this close to Aff since the night of the rave, and they would have definitely started to flush if they had blood to spare.</p><p>Fortunately or unfortunately, Aff seemed to be thinking of the same thing because color did rise in their cheeks. “Hey, do you...at the party that night, do you remember that?”</p><p>“Burning my hands? Or the cult kidnapping and killing Amanda Barnes? Yes.” Jamie couldn’t decide whether to pull their hands back.</p><p>“Oh, yeah…” Aff said and withdrew to pace the length of the room, sparing Jamie from the decision. “Shit, that sucked. I really liked her.”</p><p>“Mm.” Jamie <em> hadn’t </em>really liked Amanda Barnes, but in the way of someone who vaguely and passively annoyed you, not in the way of someone who you thought deserved to be brutally murdered.</p><p>“And I kind of invited her, so I’m pretty sure it’s my fault.”</p><p>“Well, no. You didn’t murder her,” Jamie said.</p><p>“Well, yeah, no,” Aff said. “I super didn’t do that.”</p><p>“So it’s not really your fault.”</p><p>“Yeah...I mean, I don’t think I’m like, <em> guilty of murder </em>. Although the cops might think that…” Aff said. “I’m pretty sure if you hadn’t been shot, they’d have arrested all of us.”</p><p>“Why didn’t they arrest you?”</p><p>“Uhh,” Aff shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I cried.”</p><p>“You think you—” Jamie started to say, and their voice cracked. They reached for the glass of water on the tray table, but the motion pulled at their stitches, and they stopped halfway.</p><p>“Oh, here,” Aff lunged for it, grabbed it, nearly spilled it, overcorrected, and eventually clumsily got it into Jamie’s hand. “Sorry.”</p><p>Jamie drank first to clear their throat, then to stall. “You <em> think </em>you cried?”</p><p>“I don’t remember it too well, man.” Aff was a terrible liar, and they changed the subject very obviously. “But like, at the rave. Do you remember how we made out?”</p><p>Jamie had made the mistake of trying to take another drink and choked on the water. “Yes,” they gasped. “I do remember that.” It was possible, they considered, that since the gunshot wound hadn’t killed them, embarrassment might do it.</p><p>“Oh, good,” Aff said, relieved. “I was kind of worried I’d like—hallucinated it. Do you hallucinate making out with people?”</p><p>“Not on what you took,” Jamie said.</p><p>“Great. Great,” Aff said. “So I definitely kissed both you and Sasha. Cool. Good.”</p><p>“...why aren’t you there?”</p><p>“What?” Aff said. “Jail? I told you, I was like, covered in blood and freaking out. Except, I kind of healed okay, so they just kind of checked me over and gave me some stitches, and that was it.”</p><p>“You said you cried,” Jamie said, trying to sequence the events that they’d mostly witnessed through a gunshot wound-induced haze.</p><p>“Yeah, man, are you gonna rub it in? I was freaked out! Sasha’s leg was all fucked up, and your—everything was all, I don’t know, I was like, oh those are Jamie’s intestines! I was like, I’m a wolf! And then I was like shit, I kind of attacked Cameron—he’s fine, he got some stitches too, I think, but like, he’s good. We’re cool. And then I was not a wolf, and then like shit, and then it was like oh Jamie got shot in the <em> stomach, </em>which is how people die! In the movies anyway.”</p><p>“What movies?” Jamie asked because it was the only question they had stemming from that rant that didn’t feel like it would immediately spiral into something overly complicated.</p><p>“Like westerns.”</p><p>“You watch those?”</p><p>“My dad likes them.”</p><p>“...there are antibiotics now.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Aff said. “That’s super good.”</p><p>A long silence ensued. “Why aren’t you with Sasha?” Jamie abruptly remembered their original question.</p><p>“Well,” Aff said. “Cameron’s with Sasha. And I didn’t want you to be alone?”</p><p>“I’m fine,” Jamie said, automatically. “Are they back together, then? Is that...I thought I saw something with you and Cameron.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, he’s—yeah, he’s, uh,” Aff laughed, a little hysterically. “We were kind of saying, maybe we—I mean, Sasha’s gorgeous, she and Cam are kind of a thing, Cam and I, we could be a thing, I’d love to be a thing with Sasha, that would—I mean, we’re gonna figure it out. It might be a thing.”</p><p>“Wow,” Jamie said. “Then I really don’t understand why you’re here.”</p><p>“I mean, I like you too,” Aff said. “We’re—okay, I know I was kind of like, do you want to make out? And then my tongue was in your mouth, which—how was that?”</p><p>Jamie inhaled and exhaled and decided to just accept that this was the conversation they were having. “Kind of—I mean, it works with the whole. Puppy vibe. It works for you,” they added, hastily. “Especially with the—”</p><p>“Yeah, the—wolf thing. I got you.”</p><p>“That.”</p><p>“I mean,” Aff gestured at Jamie. “This is—you really have the whole witch thing going for you. Drug dealer witch. Yeah. I mean, that’s hot. That’s a look.”</p><p>“...thanks,” Jamie said.</p><p>“Anyway, I—okay, is it too much to be like, I wanted to do this when we weren’t high,” Aff began.</p><p>“I am,” Jamie said.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I’m on morphine.”</p><p>“Oh,” Aff said. “Okay, are you like— How are you feeling?”</p><p>“Like I got shot in the stomach, then had surgery, and now am on morphine.”</p><p>“Is this a bad time to like, ask you out. Is what I meant.”</p><p>“...what.”</p><p>“Like on a date. Like, ask you out on a date. If now’s a bad time, I can ask later. I just like—I mean I told you Sasha, and Cameron, and I kind of a little bit talked about it, and then I was like shit, I need to talk to Jamie about it.”</p><p>“Are you serious?” Jamie examined Aff’s face, but they weren’t the type to lie about something like this.</p><p>“Yeah, man,” Aff said. “I mean, no pressure. We can totally just be friends.”</p><p>“I—no,” said Jamie.</p><p>“No, we can’t be friends?” Aff looked crushed for a split second, then rallied. “I mean, sure, I will totally—whatever you’re comfortable with—”</p><p>“It’s not a bad time,” Jamie clarified.</p><p>“Oh! Oh. Great. Cool. Um. Do you want to go out...sometime?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jamie said. “Why not.” It had been a weird enough day already.</p><p>“Awesome! Awesome.” Aff rocked back on their heels. “That’s—awesome. I said that. I just—yeah. Um. I really—liked kissing you. That would be cool. To do that again. I mean, we can go out on a date first. Um. After you’re out of the hospital and if we don’t all go to jail forever.”</p><p>“That would be important,” Jamie said. They were pretty sure that blood loss or not, they were blushing now.</p><p>“I kind of already used the line about seeing your hand,” Aff said. “And then I chickened out, but can I—” they held out a hand, palm up.</p><p>Jamie wordlessly put their cold hand in Aff’s very warm one. Aff immediately tightened their grip. </p><p>“So,” Jamie said. “Werewolf?”</p><p>“Pretty much, yeah,” Aff said. “Witch?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jamie said. “If you like that term.”</p><p>“A werewolf and a witch,” Aff said. “That’s some romance novel shit, right?”</p><p>Jamie shrugged. “I don’t read that stuff.”</p><p>“Oh, no, me neither,” said Aff. “I don’t really read. At all. But it sounds good, right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jamie agreed. “It sounds good.” They paused. “When you—decide where you want to go, text me.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay,” Aff said. “Or I could come back and tell you?</p><p>“No,” Jamie said. “Or you can do that too, but I need proof I didn’t hallucinate this.”</p><p>“Oh,” Aff said. “Do you hallucinate on morphine?”</p><p>“No idea,” Jamie said. “Guess I’ll find out.”</p><p>Without letting go of Jamie’s hand, Aff fumbled in their pocket for their cell phone. “Hang on.” They began to type one-handed, agonizingly slowly. “Here.”</p><p>On the tray table, Jamie’s phone vibrated. Aff picked it up and handed it over for Jamie to read.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>AF Flowers</strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em> i asked u out and u said yes so we’re going on a date :) </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>Jamie put it down on the mattress next to them wordlessly.</p><p>“Good?” Aff asked.</p><p>Jamie squeezed their hand in answer, and they stayed like that until they heard the nurse at the door.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>EDIT: Author reveals are up! Thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire">ladyofrosefire</a> for beta-reading.</p><p>If you can,  please leave a comment! They mean a lot.</p><p>I'm <a href="http://catalists.tumblr.com/">catalists</a> on Tumblr or <a href="https://twitter.com/chromecatalists/">@chromecatalists</a>  on Twitter.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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